[Closed] £30 for a 12.5 mile ride - WTF?

Surrey Hills sems like their ideal market!

How the heck can you justify that

A lot of surrey folk* pay for a cleaner, pay for a gardener, pay for an ironing lady,etc, so they probably just assume they've got to pay someone to show them round some trails they could ride round themselves.

*generalisation alert! 😉

Yep, probably.

[i]And 12.5 miles in 3.5 hours - eh?[/i]

I'd have thought red socks and walking poles would be more appropriate at that rate of progress.

And there's another one [url= http://www.astoundingadventures.co.uk/courses/mountain-biking/north-downs-singletrack.php# ]here[/url] for £25! The mind boggles.

"life on mars" "Red, white and rose"

Cringe worthy trail names, no mountains or proper tracks and £30 to ride there, that spot doesnt do any favours for the image of mountain biking. I'd refuse to ride those trails even if it was free.

I prefer to ride in the lake district free of charge.

lots of lovely advertising for them 🙄

I'd have thought red socks and walking poles would be more appropriate at that rate of progress.

Totally.

And yet they also say "There’ll [u]usually[/u] be time for a short break to sample the fantastic cakes sold from the National Trust shop at the top of Box Hill." 🙂

I'm sure they're decent folk and all they're doing is tapping into what must be a paying market.

If people are daft enough to spend their money that's up to them...

I don't see the problem tbh. Not everyone wants to nerd around on bike forums finding routes.

The trail names are very cringey though. 🙂

Was just pushing off at the start of Follow The Dog yesterday afternoon while a guide was briefing a family of four.

"We'll do the first bit and if you like it we can do some more'

lol

I don't see the problem either. Going on a 'free' ride with a local group is ok if you're a decent MTBer to start with, but these groups aren't designed for leading beginners round. You're expected to be able to keep up (within reason). I've been out with a local groups a few times and theres been people who turn back early on and never come out again.

Some people like the comfort of paying someone else to show them where to ride. If they are happy to do it then fine. If you are paying them and you don't like the trails you can tell them to take you somewhere else rather than having to continue because your 'mate' who said he would show you some trails likes climbing steep hills that reduce you to pushing.

As for silly trail names : 'Follow the Dog' is so much better for a trail name than 'Life on Mars'

Nah man, its all cool.

Although you must be a bit of a nugget to pay £30 to ride your bike, when you could just ride your bike for free instead.

[url= http://www.adventurepeaks.com/expeditions/everest_south.html ]£29,995 for an 10 km walk - WTF?[/url]

Good luck to them, I say.

I know the area well and recognise quite a few of those trail names, which include a number of bridleways, footpaths and at least one trail on private land. Nice.

I should start charging!

@HH maybe these are aimed at the slower/beginner types. Fairy muff. But still damn expensive.

Although you must be a bit of a nugget to pay £30 to ride your bike, when you could just ride your bike for free instead.

I've heard it said that there are some people who pay good money each month to a 'gym'. They go there in the car and then run on a treadmill or ride on a fixed bike for an hour or so before going back home in the car.

One day I'll share my profit making idea with them, on a 50/50 basis. It goes something like this: don't pay the monthly fees, simple run or ride to the gym, turn around and go back home!

I'm on to a winner there.

If you get an average group size of 3, then its only 90 quid for half a days work, its not really a lot of money when looking at it as earning a wage.

If you get an average group size of 3, then its only 90 quid for half a days work, its not really a lot of money when looking at it as earning a wage.

But if you get 6-8 then £180-£240 isn't to be sniffed at.

And like rocketman said, [u]if[/u] there are families of [u]four[/u] paying the best part of £120 then they must be bonkers.

I doubt you would get group sizes that large.

I used to run a bike guiding business about 20 years ago.

Used to charge £10 for half a day including bike hire, which seemed like a lot at the time.

On the days that I made £200 it was great, but on the days (most days) that I made £0 it wasn't.

Didn't do it for very long.

if there are families of four paying the best part of £120 then they must be bonkers.

I love my family to bits but the prospect of going on a bike ride with them is mortifying 🙂

Sometimes wish I'd had someone to show me round my local trails when I started biking, hmm actually I still do like to be shown round new places, fortunatley there's quite a few people on here will do it for free 🙂 £30 seems steep but if you've got a loaded client base why not. I like andrews business plan, I'll give you a quid for a 40% share! Interested in the legal implications [i]if[/i] they are using FPs and private land. Cheeky is just haggling over ROWs, does charging to take people on FPs change things?

3.5 hours? I did a 12 mile ride with a few friends last month, 6 hours it took us, it was a lot of fun.

I dunno...............

Driving an hour and a half is going to be circa £30 in petrol.

Going on a MTB holliday, is say £50/day (+transport, so a £200 flights).

£30 doesn't seem too bad!

But if you get 6-8 then £180-£240 isn't to be sniffed at.

It's not to be sniffed at but it's hardly excessive profiteering, it's actually pretty standard for a days freelance work - not that amazing when you take into account all the costs, time spent organising it, answering phone calls/emails about it, filling in tax returns yada yada yada.

I did a 12 mile ride with a few friends last month, 6 hours it took us, it was a lot of fun

Good luck to them, you can't blame them for being enterprising, looks like a professional outfit, what's the problem?

Although you must be a bit of a nugget to pay £30 to ride your bike, when you could just ride your bike for free instead.

Last year I paid £15 for the 'privilege' of a days riding (way-marked route with food stops) around Hope/Edale in the Peaks.

These were the same trails that I ride for free the rest of the year as I'm relatively local to the area.

I didn't mind the cost as it was a day spent riding with a bunch of mates that don't get together very often, blazing sunshine, plus the camaraderie & banter with loads of other riders. Plus the £15 went to local causes, not somebody's wages.

£30 for a 3.5 hour guided ride sounds a lot, but some people are happy to pay purely for the convenience of just turning up with a bike and riding... no faffing around working out where the routes are etc etc

Plus, I expect there's insurance implications for the guide team, therefore the cost of this will be passed on to the punters.

£30, so about half an hours worth of time for the stereotypical stw-er then.........

All for £30! How the heck can you justify that

They don't need to. If they get people paying that then they may stay in business, if not then they won't. That's business.

 

My recent ponderings to set up a walking/riding guiding company has found me trying to justify charging a certain amount for something people can do for free.

However, it's been pointed out to me that people WILL pay for a few hrs walking or riding. Local knowledge of trails and tales for some is better than going out and potentially not seeing/experiencing the best on offer, or a specific type of experience in the outdoors.

Fear of getting lost, de-motivates some people as does constant looking at maps, etc... A good guide will encourage and support others, offering rests and alterations during planned route to adapt to circumstances. Money in the right place will make an outdoors experience a positive thing, thus encouraging people to do it again, whether paying for it or doing it alone.

People buy, TV's, DVD's, electronic games, etc all to provide entertainment, and i today's society of waste and laziness £30 is nothing for a few hours enjoyment.

Some people happily spaff £30 on a night out, most of them regret the waste and lose the next day to a hang over.
I could go on..

Agreed 12.5 miles and 3hrs isn't a long distance or time for some, but for others it's a way of them getting out of what may be a enclosed life, devoid of little meaning, that 3 hrs maybe the best 3hrs of their year, a few hrs to change their lives...For them that's a boody good investment..

one of the best ways to get the most out your annual alps-trip, is to hire a guide for a day or 2.

it'll save you hours of rolling down [s]fire[/s] sorry, [u]gravel[/u] roads looking for the trails that drop off the side. Some of which may be worth riding/rideable.

highly recommended.

this is the same thing, but in surrey.

I'd refuse to ride those trails even if it was free

Surrey Hills = good trails. Fact.

I know both companies / organisations. They're a good bunch.
Insurance for guided riding is quite expensive, as is the training for the guides. There is a market for this - London is on the doorstep, and there are lots of people who have limited time but slightly less limited wallets.

Both of those companies are involved in supporting mountain bike riding in the area, by the way.

Bearing in mind £30 will just about buy you a decent tyre these days, I'm quite surprised people are, well, surprised.

<edit> Oh, and there are no good trails here. Those trails that do exist have lame names, of course, and are not worth riding. Nothing to see here...</edit>

I wonder how padded the mandatory padded cycling gloves have to be though?

Mine haven't got any padding in at all.

And sometimes I dare to ride with mitts, or even bare handed!

Would I be allowed to ride?

(Good luck to them btw. People spend money on much sillier things.)

But paying for someone to point out where the trails are in Alps makes total sense

Its better than them charging a £5 and over loading the trails

Ahem, how much do people pay to be taught how to ride that £2-3000 mountain bike, dressed in £200-£300 of kit?

But paying for someone to point out where the trails are in Alps makes total sense

For some people it might make total sense in Surrey too, just not to the average STW user.

I tried following an MBR route around the North Downs one time. A right royal pain in the bum, stopping to get the map out at every path junction, there's a lot! Deffo ruins the flow of a nice piece of singletrack, having someone that knows their way around is great if you have never been to the area before.

Lets face it, we wouldn't think twice about spending £30 down the pub, in fact it would be a cheap night out. 😀

On the other hand there is great satisfaction in finding yourself a new piece of trail for the first time.

If people were happy to get the OS maps out and self navigate all day, would we have as many trail centres as we do??

hmm, I think i have sussed out the rules for riding in surrey...
The trails should be for the select few only, who must ride on the correct bikes, not 100 BSO's from Tesco, but not 4k 150mm+ travel full-sus bikes either. They should have a good level of skill, which should not be learnt through skills courses. There must be no maps or easy to find knowledge on where the trails are, and paying for guides is wrong. They must be found be asking the right people, who make a judgement as to whether to pass you some information, or by going along to a group ride which you must be able to keep up with, if you can't you should go home. They must be able to read an OS map, although the trails aren't on any maps and there are no directions. Theres no point in asking on a forum because you shouldn't publicly tell anyone where the trails are because that will result in them being ridden too much. You should drive a Skoda Octavia

And how much does Biketreks charge for their evening rides in the Lakes? Another example of north/south divide, haves/have nots etc? 😆

Good luck to them. If people will pay £70 for a Howies bobble hat, or a few quid for a box of nuts and raisins sent in the post, nowt surprises me.

@HoratioHufnagel - I think you hit the nail on the head there. 😀

One of the reasons people are quite cagey about telling others about where the trails are is that quite a lot of very good trails are nowt but scratches in the ground. once everyone knows about them, then they suddenly become 20ft wide mudfests. As there's no obligation to tell everyone, people tend to pick and choose, and show their little stash to people they like.

Put another way - better that than Surfer-style localism, which sucks. One of the local paper's journalists, a keen srufer, was gobsmacked that 'us locals' weren't beating up outsiders for riding on 'our' trails. We had to explain that it doesn't work like that in mountain biking.

Grum that was my point. Perhaps not well made
I was trying to be ironic

It seems accepted on here that people will pay to be guided in the alps, to save on hassle. But that some how this is insane in Surrey. I don't think I would pay for guiding in Surrey but I can see why you might.

Paying for a guide instructor for a family I think makes total sense if know one in the family has expertise on a bike

Jeez I hate trail names. Makes me cringe every time someone talks about them, especially the ones where it's just some crappy bridleway... 🙂

"oooh yes we rode all the way up Bobby's A**ehole last night then over to Ewok village 2"

aaaaargh!

@HoratioHufnagel - I think you hit the nail on the head there.

+1

When I moved down south I put a lot of effort into meeting the right people to find the good stuff in Surrey, some of them are still friends.

However, I don't really ride any more as I have young twins, a manic job and my wife works, so what little free time is available takes meticulous planning to get the most out of. £30 is a small price to pay to take the planning out IMHO.....

Not that I'd actually undertake that myself, as planning is part of the enjoyment of the process, but I can see the appeal

I think if people feel more comfortable with a guide, even in a central area of the country, then that's fine. Some urban born-and-bred people find the countryside a wee bit alien, others are intimidated by the technology and hype of so called extreme sports. A bit of help to get past that coud be worth paying for. At least they are giving it a go.

30 quid per person sounds pretty damned reasonable to me. When you look at the likely number of days work the guys are going to have, the fact that it's very likely to be seasonal, Liability Insurance costs (assuming they have some!) they can probably only do one trip per day as even if it should take a couple of hours, it could take 5 hours with an inexperienced group, so no chance of safely arranging a 2 trips per day and coining it in! So it might only be a half days work, but you still need to earn a days wage.
I could go on, but I doubt they are going to get rich doing what they do, I certainly know that feeling.

£30 for 3.5 hours - seems pretty reasonable.

If I had an afternoon to spend in Surrey I think I'd be tempted. I'd be paying £30 so that I'd spend my time cycling rather than wandering around lost.

It's £30 FFS, I spent that on lunch in the smoke today. Can't see the issue, if you don't like it don't spend it but why criticise?

Nothings waymarked so it may £30 well spent

I like how their XC routes are all 25 or 25 & 3/4 miles long, regardless of if they are 30km or the 'killer loop' 40km in length. Ooops.